Abstract
The article presents studies examining whether the better than average (BTA) effect appears in opinions regarding obedience of individuals participating in an experiment conducted in the Milgram paradigm. Participants are presented with a detailed description of the experiment, asked to declare at what moment an average participant would cease their participation in the study, and then asked to declare at what moment they themselves would quit the experiment. It turned out that the participants demonstrated a strong BTA effect. This effect also concerned those who had known the results of the Milgram experiment prior to the study. Interestingly, those individuals—in contrast to naive participants—judged that the average person would remain obedient for longer, but at the same time prior familiarity with the Milgram experiment did not impact convictions as to own obedience. By the same token, the BTA effect size was larger among those who had previously heard of the Milgram experiment than those who had not. Additionally, study participants were asked to estimate the behavior of the average resident of their country (Poland), as well as of average residents of several other European countries. It turned out that in participants’ judgment the average Pole would withdraw from the experiment quicker than the average Russian and average German, but later than average residents of France and England.
Highlights
The series of experiments conducted by Milgram (1963, 1965) dedicated to the subject of obedience toward authority is among the most famous and most shocking in the history of social psychology
People asked to predict the behavior of a Milgram experiment participant rather think about how evil and immoral a person would have to be to administer an electric shock to another person that could end his/her life, but not about what kind of situation could influence a normal person to engage in such behavior
Milgram convincingly showed that people do not appreciate the degree of obedience of the average person participating in his experiment
Summary
The series of experiments conducted by Milgram (1963, 1965) dedicated to the subject of obedience toward authority is among the most famous and most shocking in the history of social psychology. Social Comparisons and Obedience (30th) switch of the generator, and that the standard reaction of participants will be to refuse to carry out the experimenter’s instructions, thereby leading to a refusal to shock the alleged learner sitting in an adjacent room. This effect is a perfect example of a fundamental attribution error (Ross, 1977) consisting in overestimating the role of an individual’s dispositional traits, while at the same time failing to appreciate the effect of the situation that individual is operating in. We may expect favoring one’s own group in such comparisons (a Pole should withdraw from the Milgram experiment sooner than an average Frenchman or Englishman), but on the other hand the positive stereotype held about people of those nationalities can mitigate this effect, or even make the average “other” perceived as refusing sooner than an average Pole to carry out the orders of the experimenter
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